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PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY 



SUBDIVISION II. MYXOMYCETES, OR SLIME MOLDS 



Terrestrial or aquatic organisms, frequently classified as belonging 

 to the animal kingdom and found commonly on decaying wood, 

 leaves, or humous soil in forests. Their vegetative body consists 

 of a naked, multinucleated mass of protoplasm called the plasmo- 

 dium, which has a creeping and rolling amosboid motion, putting out 

 and retracting regions of its body called pseudopodia. The size of 

 the plasmodium varies from a ten-cent piece to several square feet 

 of surface. It is net-like, the net being of irregular dimensions. 

 Like the amoeba the outer portion of the plasmodium is clear and 



PIG. in. A, B, Comatricha nigra. A, Sporangium, natural size; B, capilli- 

 tium, 20/1; C, E, Stemonitis fusca; C, sporangium, natural size; D and E, capilli- 

 tia, 5/1, 20/1; F, H, Enerlhema papillatum, F, unripe; G, mature sporangium, 

 10/1: H, capillitium, 20/1. (C, D, after nature. A, F, G, H, after Rostafinski; 

 B, E, after de Bary in Die nattirlichen Pflanzenfamilien I. i, p. 26.) 



watery and known as the ectoplasm, the inner portion is granular 

 and called the endoplasm. Like the amosba and unlike other plants, 

 this slimy body engulfs solid food by means of its pseudopodia in- 

 stead of admitting it in solution. It is extremely sensitive to light 

 being negatively heliotropic, i.e., turning away from the sun's rays. 

 At the time of reproduction, the plasmodium creeps to the surface. 

 The whole plasmodium then forms one or more fructifications. 

 These fructifications vary from cushion-like masses (athallia) 



